The newly illiterate

Publisher and columnist Max Harris's mission, in a hostile cultural climate, was to share his enthusiasm for words and their worth. He would have been in sad agreement, if he were still alive, with education expert Professor Geoff Masters who has just recommended in a report to the Queensland government that new teaching graduates sit literacy exams before being allowed into the State’s classrooms.

Language pundit Frank Devine once wrote of his mission to protect "real English" from the "legal English" propagated by lawyers. I too once had a mission, despite being a lawyer, to alert a secondary school principal to the violation of "real English" by his own English Department.

Unlike Max Harris, I worked not so much in a hostile cultural climate, but more in an indifferent educational one. It all began when I glanced at the Year 10 English "Overview" which one of my children brought home. On a closer reading, I was appalled at English expression which was careless, clumsy, ungrammatical, unintelligible and unworthy of any Year 10 student, let alone whoever wrote it.

The very opening words were flawed: "Welcome to the Year 10 English!" The rest of the paragraph, headed with "The child is father of the Man", consisted of this abominable sentence: "As the lines by William Wordsworth suggest to you, we are basing our studies, this semester, on the novels, plays, poems; on language excerpts; which illustrate that the dilemmas and code of behaviour learnt at the beginning of life create the structure and form of society in which the adult lives." I was not convinced the quoted line (not lines) of poetry suggested anything so grotesque. But I read on.

The rest of this introduction left me (and no doubt its 15-year-old student readers) totally bewildered: "We hope therefore that in the study of ourselves, we are also studying our society, evaluating it against the belief and patterns of other societies; projecting for ourselves, patterns for the future; diagnosing problems and finding solutions."

Never mind the dysfunctional punctuation. How could an English teacher write like this?

A little later in the material came this meaningless mess: "In a role of interviewers and researchers, student devised questions, analysed purpose of their role, become information seekers and assessors."

So I wrote to the principal, not as a nit-picking lawyer-parent, but as a lover of the English language, concerned what hopelessly muddled messages such an afflicted overview might give to students. Making no comment on how English was taught in his school, I wanted him to know that, frankly, at least one of his teachers of English couldn't write it!

I received this bland response: "The examples of English usage which form the substance of much of your letter have been referred to the English teaching staff for consideration and attention where appropriate ... Thank you for drawing to my attention your concerns about these aspects of our English program."

The English teaching staff clearly gave very little "consideration and attention" to the issue, because the following year home came a Year 11 English "Work Program".

This had a "preamble" which opened well with a short, punchy topic sentence: "Year 11 is a turning point!" Unfortunately, what followed surely left its 16-year-old readers punch-drunk: "You have chosen the subjects which will be a formative part of your career pattern and you are beginning to have much stronger ideas about what you would like to do and where you would like to direct your energies."

Then followed this stunning conclusion to the "preamble": "The first part of your English course would like to draw upon this quality of reflection when you think about past experiences and predict patterns for the future." The actual point eluded me. But I read on. And resolved to write again to the principal about another confused and confusing document intended for students.

Would class teachers, I asked, need to translate into simple English for students a sentence like this: "As a result of these activities, you will understand the difficulties and challenges of autobiographical writing and in a more formal sense will be able to evaluate the purpose of writing, the sites in which language occurs, the 'stories' that personal experience creates, and the values that emerge from these experiences."

Later this rhetoric changed to a hopeful but, in my opinion, no clearer statement of purpose: "We hope that your growing experience will have taught you that the 'personal sites of language' give a particular message, and that you should by now have some sense of bias/perspective/powers to persuade in written/visual media".

My letter pointed out particular language concerns: for example, tautology ("prior knowledge earlier in the year"), a passive tautological anachronism ("a small note should be appendaged") and much pompous jargon ("a documentation", "formulate notes", "negotiate areas of choice", "social annotations", "posing argument and quotation", "personal associations"). Had this been written for the English Department by an ancient legal draftsman?

A letter soon arrived in a poorly-addressed anonymous envelope. The Head of English had replied. Authorship of both the overview and the work program was clearly admitted, but the tone was set early: "Our statements seem to be a perennial challenge to you, and at least give you the opportunity of putting pen to paper!" I noted the collective “our”, considered the ominous exclamation mark and winced at an indefensible cliché used by an obviously defensive Head of Department.

This educator, whose appalling language skills I'd criticised, was striking back with more of the same.

But I read on: "The present English Arts Syllabus is embracing very strongly Text-Context and Critical Literacy models and these require a certain number of changes in approach and terminology. Work programs would not be accepted at Moderation meetings if they did not reflect these changes, and a student would be disadvantaged if she were not familiar with these processes." Phew! I promptly decided my mission was doomed. I would pursue it no further. In light of what may have been an implied threat, I felt my child might suffer.

Max Harris, in his crusade against outrageous linguistic crimes, regularly railed against "Ed-speak". He described this as the pretentious jargon" of educators whom he ridiculed for their "excellence in pseudo-scholarly obfuscation". At the same time Harris was disturbed by what he called "the New Illiteracy championed by the contemporary school system".

Has the whole process come full circle? Did I expose not only the reprehensible writing of a teacher of English, but also the successful re-entry into the school system by one of its own newly illiterate?